Lying and Law Enforcement

Did you know that most of the time it is totally legal for a law enforcement officer to lie to suspects during interrogations? I might clarify that law enforcement call these interactions interviews. Law enforcement is prohibited from using physical force during interrogations. However, they are allowed to use a variety of powerful psychological ploys to extract confessions from people.

Law Enforcement officers can lie and make false statements to get a confession from a suspect. These tactics have terrorized innocent people into confessing to crimes they didn’t commit. As a former law enforcement officer, I can tell you it happens all the time.

A suspect can be told that their friend or another suspect confessed and said that they, along with the suspect committed the crime being investigated. That occurs even when no one has confessed to anything. Law Enforcement can say they have evidence, such as fingerprints, linking the subject of the interrogation to the crime even if no such evidence exists.

These types of tactics where law enforcement lies about having confessions from other people or having evidence when none exist have led to horrific convictions based of false confessions.[i] One of the most notable cases is the Central Park Five.[ii]

The Central Park Five case revolved around the horrific assault and rape of 28-year-old Trisha Meili. Her body was discovered in New York City’s Central Park on the morning of April 20, 1989. She had been raped repeatedly and spent 2 weeks in a coma and when she come out of the coma, she had no memory of the attack. New York City Mayor Ed Koch called it “the crime of the century”.

There was of course widespread public outcry for a quick arrest and conviction of those responsible. That’s exactly what happened when Antron McCray, 15, Kevin Richardson, 15, Yusef Salaam, 15, Raymond Santana, 14, and Korey Wise, 16, who came to be known as the Central Park Five were arrested and convicted.

The case of the Central Park Five, involved police officers lying to teenagers under the pressure of police deception tactics.

In 2002, after serving sentences that ranged from six to 13 years for their convictions, new DNA evidence and a confession proved convicted rapist Matias Reyes was the true, lone culprit. The charges against the five men were vacated and they eventually received at $41 million settlement.

Of the 375 DNA exonerations the Innocence Project[iii] has recorded, false confessions contributed to 29% of wrongful convictions.[iv]

Law enforcement may tell you they know you’re guilty during an interrogation because the results of their investigation clearly indicate that you are guilty, even when the investigation is not yet complete and they have no such evidence. This is the first step in a guilt-presumptive interrogation method known as the Reid Technique, which permits the use of deception to get a suspect to confess. What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

I knew of a case where an armed robbery of a convenience store took place. Law enforcement had a person that resembled the suspects description and they interrogated him for several hours. He confessed. Case closed, right? No. After a good lawyer finally got involved, they found surveillance footage and receipts that put this person who had confessed, over 200 miles away at the time of the robbery.

I know what you’re asking. Why would an innocent person plead guilty to something they didn’t do? I’ve found that there are a whole host of reasons that get into the field of psychology, and I’m not qualified to even begin to figure it out.

Let’s discuss minors and false confessions. There was a study that was published in Law and Human Behavior that found younger and more suggestible participants were more likely than older and less suggestible participants to falsely take responsibility.[v]

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 36% of children under 18 years of age confessed to a crime they didn’t commit. Also, 10% of adults confessed to a crime they didn’t commit.[vi]

The Reid Technique along with the vulnerabilities of children has led to an unacceptable rate of false confessions.

Law enforcement will convince people that denying they did anything wrong is pointless and confessing is their only option.

I blame the Supreme Court of 1969 for this horrific tactic. I the case of Frazier v. Cupp,[vii] the U.S. Supreme Court decided to allow a confession into evidence even though police falsely told the suspect that his cousin had already confessed and implicated him in the crime. That ruling has since been used throughout the country to sanction police deception in the interrogation room.

In my opinion if you are ever accused of a crime and law enforcement wants to interrogate you, keep your mouth shut and ask for a lawyer.

[i] https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/glossary.aspx#FC [ii] https://www.history.com/topics/1980s/central-park-five [iii] https://innocenceproject.org/ [iv] https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/glossary.aspx#FC [v] Redlich, A.D., Goodman, G.S. Taking Responsibility for an Act Not Committed: The Influence of Age and Suggestibility. Law Hum Behav 27, 141–156 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022543012851 [vi] https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Age%20and%20Mental%20Status%20of%20Exonerated%20Defendants%20Who%20Falsely%20Confess%20Table.pdf [vii] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/394/731/